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Near the end of the third act ofJohn Wick: Chapter 4, Keanu Reevesfalls down the stairs.
Not just any stairs.
Were going to take the whole movie and wrap it into one set piece!
Warning: significant spoilers to follow!
Youre four movies into the franchise, and each one has gotten bigger and more lucrative than the last.
The character doesnt speak for literally a half-hour.
We open up with a real bummer at a funeral.
His wife dies of natural causes.
Wife leaves him a puppy.
The puppy gets stomped on.
He buries the puppy, and theres no action for 40 minutes in an action movie.
Then, when he does go, he kills 86 people with head shots.
Can you imagine how that looks on paper?
Its a tough elevator pitch.We did pitch to several studios before we did it independently.
There were a lot of passes.
Some were very gentle passes.
Some were, Yeah,no.
What are you guys thinking?
We said, Were going to do part 70s hard-boiled action meets Japanese anime meets Spaghetti western.
And were going to do it all with these Greek-mythological overlays on it.
But itsnot totally clear that he died.
And on the hate board was four sequels.
Theres got to be a why.
We thought wed just do one.
We thought wed be all high and mighty about it.
All of a sudden, now weve got to make a franchise.
Were like,Okay.
Lets just make a promise always to answer the why before we do anything.
If we dont have an answer, we wont do it.
On the first one, we didnt really give it a lot of thought.
We just tried to make the movie.
2: We started thinking,We could make a ninja movie.
Lets make a samurai movie.
Lets make a car-chase movie.
We can do whatever we want.Thats how we cracked it.
3 isOkay, were not done yet.
Weve got more ideas.
Lets put ninjas on motorcycles.
Lets build the mythology.
You get done with three movies, and now youre like,Okay, well why do No.
Yeah, I dont know if we could build a movie around it, but thatd be fun.
Because, we never did nunchucks.
We never didEnter the Dragon.
Im a huge Sergio Leone fan.
I never got to do the Spaghetti westernstyle showdown that I wanted to do.
We never really answered what theHigh Tablewas.
Then Keanu just looks at me and goes, John Wick needs to die.
Im like, What do you mean?
He says, Well, lets do the samurai thing.
We were reading the bookHagakureat the time.
And its the way of dying, the art of dying.
you’re able to only have a good death if youve had a good life.
We started going down this road of Bushido samurai and anti-samurai mentality.
And how does this philosophy tie into all the movies?
Hows he going to get out of this?
If you look at it, hes always made choices that hurt his friends.
Hes never had to face the real consequences, hes put everybody in a shit spot.
So wouldnt it be nice if we did a movie where everybody called him on it?
This whole movie was about consequences for Johns last three movies.Thats the why.
Otherwise, what were we going to do?
Just do another chapter of chasing in and out of the gauntlet of warriors?
How did you come up with the staircase sequence?
It is gnarly!We knew we wanted to do an apartment fight.
We knew we wanted to be on a motorcycle.
We knew we wanted to do cars.
Maybe well do the duel here.
Scott and I both looked at each other and just smiled going, Ooh, thats going to hurt.
Didnt even talk about it.
It started this really weird waterfall effect where were going, Okay, were going to throw someone.
Oh, wait, wait, wait.
Ive got a better idea.
Were going to use it as a metaphor.
Were going to take the whole movie and wrap it into one set piece!
One that sums up everything.
Were going to go all the way up.
Then What would Buster Keaton do?
Were going to do the biggest stair fall youve ever seen.
Theyre going to fight to the top, and now its our Butch and Sundance moment.
Then were going to have them try and kill each other.
It happened that fast on the way back to the hotel.
I couldnt stop writing this thing.
I get on the phone with co-screenwriter Mike Finch.
Im like, Were writing this right now.
Rina Sawayama is a revelation in this.
But she had never professionally acted before.
I understand you hired her after seeing a couple of music videos?
Originally, it was a much smaller role.
Im like Sergio Leone I attempt to cast off a look.
Everything is, Leone would say, about the eyes.
Every background player, every character has got to emote.
This was one of the last roles I was trying to cast.
A lot of times, we look in the dance community, because they have good motion.
You just bang out in dancers.
And there was this one little window where Rina was in this orange wig.
It was for just a quick frame of a music video.
Im like, Oh, thats an interesting look.
Then I looked at three or four of her music videos.
And in every video, her look was completely different.
I was like, Oh my God, thats a live-action anime.
Shes an anime character.
I knew very little.
Two days later, I was doing a Zoom with her: Hi, Im Chad.
This is going to be a weird phone call, but Im the director of theJohn Wicks.
Shes like, Oh, I like those movies.
I said, Thats good.
How would you like to be in one?
And shes like, Ive never been in a movie before.
I know, but youve done all these music videos, and you have this great personality and charisma.
We want this Japanese anime vibe to it.
Then I asked her, How do you feel about action?
Shes like, What?
I said, Yeah, Im going to put you in an action sequence with Keanu Reeves.
And rightly, she got a little concerned, going, Yeah, I dont do action.
She had never done martial arts before, but she had great muscle memory from performance and dance.
Keanu loved to read with her.
Then we just had the heart-to-heart: You want to do this?
And shes like, Im in.
Scott Adkins is unrecognizable in this movie.
Hes so big in this prosthetic suit nothing like how he appears in theUndisputedorAccident Manmovies.
Yeah.The man is a supermodel.
You see him coming from a mile away.
Hes got pecs for days.
Ive known Scott since I was a stuntman.
Hes one of the best martial-arts performers in the industry, and weve been trying to work together forever.
I know how that works whether itsMarko Zaror,Mark Dacascos, Gary Daniels, orDaniel Bernhardt.
And I hate that.
Thats one of the things we dont want to do.
So even if you notice Marko Zaror, hes got to have a real part.
You have a go at build something around who they are.
Then the subversive nature of what were trying to do inWickis you dont see it coming.
Plus Scott and I are both Sammo Hung fans.
Ah, Sammo Hung!
When you see Sammo move, you just cant help but go, Oh my God, thats amazing.
So were like, Okay, Scott.
Were going to give you seven pages of dialogue.
Youre going to be this master criminal mind at this massive club.
Youre going to be this expert cardplayer, then youre going to spin-hook kick John.
No ones going to see it coming.
Scott didnt miss a beat and went, I love it.
Thats five hours of prosthetics every day.
He lived in his hotel and learned to shuffle cards like a dealer.
Then to move like he does?
I mean, come on.
He does a great job.
Youre expecting your typical old, evil, bad guy, muah-ha-ha.
Then all of a sudden, he starts fighting John.
Youre like,Who is this guy?And thats the gag.
Im curious about the future of theJohn Wickcinematic universe though maybe you dont want to even call it that.
The fact that Lionsgate wants to continue the universe and the audience wants to see it is very flattering.
Keanu and I are both very impressed.
Its a little overwhelming.
We have tons of ideas.
I can make up set pieces, choreography, and characters all day long.
I dont have those answers right now.
John Wicks are so personal.
And its very hard to put that into something else.
Len Wiseman he was very gracious.
I dont want to project what I love onto somebody else.
My only advice is to attempt to make it personal.
I hope people push it to the limit.
I hope they take it to a place that I didnt think of.
I would love for really smart people to keep pushing it, really curious people to try other things.
Then maybe thatll inspire us all back.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
